For a variety of reasons I had originally decided not to comment on this thread. The reason being that I respect both the views, and rights to them, that some have in how they interpret what they read and research.
As some may know, I am of the very strong opinion that "Far and Sure" was NOT Tilly. There is a variety of reasons for this, but among them is one that I believe to be most important in comparing writings by the two. They give contradictory accounts of how Crump discovered the land upon which he would build Pine Valley.
Tilly wrote of the day they were returning from a round of golf at Atlantic City and how Crump looked out the window and saw the land as they passed it by and immediately realized that he had to build a golf course there. He wrote it, not as one who was told the story, but as an actual eyewitness of the event.
"Far and Sure" would recount this same discovery and tell of it as one who was also there with him at that moment and tells how it was during a day of horseback riding and hunting when he and friends quite unexpectedly came upon the land and he decided that it would be perfect for a golf course.
As one who wrote about the design and construction of Pine Valley continuously throughout his life, as a man who would end up contributing to the final design, as a bit of an obsessed admirerof it whose lifelong dream was to create his own "Pine Valley" style of golf course which would rival it, he most definitely would NOT have written contradictory accounts of the finding of the land by Crump, especially under a pseudonym whose identity was understood and of fairly common-knowledge of identity back in the day.
That the accounts are similar are not surprising. We are talking about commentary on singular and specific locations including the uses of terminology quite common to both time and place.
For example, in that day all writers wrote of a golf courses "bogey" rather than it's "par." How many who would read that today in the era when "par" is the expected and target score for both pro's & amateurs alike can even grasp what was meant by it?
In order to draw a conclusion as to who an unnamed author may have beenwhen comparing writings nearly a century later, it is not the similarities in style that should provide the direction, but rather whether there are any clear-cut and definitive contradictions of major and important points and subjects.
Pine Valley, especially for Tilly, was seminal to his writing and some of his designs and would certainly show in this area. It is for this discrepency (and some others) that I changed my view on this a while back as, when my good chemistry professor first broached the subject to me, I felt that there was merit and agreed with it.
Now, despite what some may think, I do not consider myself the be-all and end-all of Tilly info. I greatly respect that this is my OPINION and nothing more. I just want to remind the professor to once again consider Linus and the magic triple-helix!
One thing that most don't understand, know or appreciate about Tilly's writings is just how much information was gathered for him and even partially written for him by another person.
Tom Paul mentioned that, "In my mind, there's just no one else quite as valuable as Tillie and his constant writing in and around this area during that time..."
Tom Macwood mentions a possible sea voyage by "Far and Sure" and expressed his belief over whether Tilly was travelling at this time.
Tilly was travelling, infact I have now confirmed and built a very accurate early timeline of these travels and am able to place him from the northeast to Florida, out to Texas and Oklahoma and even into California by 1915.
How then was he able to garner the information for his articles on Philadelphia area golf, write them and get them published even weekly at times while doing this?
The answer is that helper I mentioned above.. His father, B.C. Tillinghast. B.C. was almost as obsessive about golf as tilly was and was a pretty decent player. For example, he won the Absecom Dup at Atlantic City in 1912. B.C. wrote almost every single poem used in his "Hazard" columns and was his on-site observor for many things locally while travelling. He would write this information out for his son and Tilly would incorporate much of it, many times verbatim, into his articles.
I hope this soverly long post gives at least a bit to think about on this question. Right or wrong, whoever "Far and Sure" actually was (by the way there was an English golf writer who also went by that Nom-de-plume in the 1895-1910 era and published in British golf journals of the day), much of his writings provide key understanding of how some of the great designs came into being and how the game was appreciated back in the day.